Cherry blossom festival: a time to reflect

Celebration becomes fundraiser for Japan

The flowering cherry tree, a Japanese native that thrives in American soil, is a lovely sight tinged with melancholy. The blossoms appear each spring in exuberant pink clouds, only to wither and die in a few weeks — a reminder that life, despite its beauty, is fleeting.

The Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park will host its Cherry Blossom Festival on Saturday against a backdrop that highlights nature’s cruel streak. Last week’s Sendai earthquake and tsunami killed thousands. As nuclear power reactors spiral out of control, Japan is threatened by yet more destruction and death.

Clearly, Dennis Otsuji notes, this is the wrong time for a party.

“We are not celebrating,” said Otsuji, president of the friendship garden’s board. “We are supporting and raising funds for help.”

Plans for a joyful festival have been recast in sober hues. Los Angeles-based Consul General Junichi Ihara set aside cheerful remarks in favor of a somber talk on this crisis. Donations will be collected for the Red Cross’ Japanese relief campaign. Vendors are reviewing their wares, ensuring they set the right tone.

“We’ve told everybody,” Otsuji noted, “please be respectful of all the things that are going on.”

Across the country, similar groups are taking similar steps. Washington’s 16-day cherry blossom festival, which begins March 26, and San Francisco’s version, April 9-10 and 16-17, have both moved fundraising efforts to center stage.

But consider, again, the trees celebrated by these festivals. In Japan, the first cherry buds signal the start of spring. On both sides of the Pacific this is a blooming demonstration that, no matter how harsh the winter or severe the obstacle, life goes on.

That’s a lesson San Diego’s garden is uniquely positioned to teach.

Humanity in bloom

More than 100,000 visitors annually enter the two-and-a-half acre Japanese Friendship Garden, enjoying the koi pond, wisteria arbors and more than 160 cherry trees. Last fall, workers began easing the garden into a canyon below its existing site, adding strolling paths, a waterfall, an amphitheater and a traditional tea house.

This expansion, to a total of 11 acres, won’t be completed until 2014. But the roughly $14 million project, which for years was nothing more than a set of plans, is now taking shape as workers with shovels, hoes and bulldozers prepare the land for new growth.

A viewing deck outside the garden allows passers-by a glimpse of the addition, now shaded by dozens of cherry trees in various states of bloom.

“Everyone will be able to look down at the canyon,” said Fred Miyahara, vice president of the garden’s board, “and see cherry blossoms down in the garden.”

Those with a sense of history may also see hints that nature is not alone in its recuperative powers. Humanity, too, can recover and send out fresh shoots.

The garden’s history is rooted in the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, which featured a tea house donated by Japan’s government. After the exposition, a local family, the Asakawas, leased the place as a popular attraction.